Padma Shri Dr. Jai Pal Singh (13 May 1930 – 24 September 1997) was an Indian physician and educator. Singh obtained his bachelor’s medical degree in 1962 with a distinguished academic record from the third oldest medical college in India Sarojini Naidu Medical College, Agra, India - the same institute from where his father (Late Dr. Yogendra Singh, a doctor with the British Army) graduated a generation ago. Active in sports and theater for the University of Agra, he was also an outstanding scholar and was at the top of his Bachelors and Masters examinations. After completing his post-graduate qualifications in Surgery in 1955 with outstanding honors, he worked for over 40 years in Delhi and its neighbouring regions. He was felicitated by his College as an Outstanding Alumni along with other prominent doctors in Delhi in 1988.

Dr. Jai Pal Singh was passionate about excellence in education, having seen the enormous benefits in his own life and career. This drove him to be committed to learning and teaching, always encouraging and engaging the younger generation to excel at academics as a path to self development and success. His strong work ethic and sense of industry; attention to details in all he did; his affection for and lifelong commitments to family, relatives and friends; his firm belief in his own capabilities to overcome the most adverse circumstances were key attributes that made him the outstanding achiever that he was. Jai Pal Singh’s worldview evolved from his rural background, from his industrious and hardy farming community from Western Uttar Pradesh.

His commitment to rural people was remarkable by any standards – in the brief period when he commenced private practice in 1992-1995, he operated free on scores of poor unable to afford the cost of surgery or hospitalization. During his career, thousands from rural areas from around Delhi come for succor and assistance in times of medical and even personal distress - and they never went away empty handed, from his home or his office.

During his medical career spanning four decades, Dr Singh visited the United Kingdom as a Commonwealth Fellow in 1968 at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street London; traveled to United States on a WHO Fellowship to study Accident and Emergency Services; was invited to the General Scientific Meeting of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in Melbourne in 1984; read scientific papers at the International Cancer Congress in Seattle US, 1982 and in 1983 at the Second European Cancer Congress at Amsterdam, the Netherlands; and was invited to Islamabad in 1989 by the Society of Surgeons of Pakistan.

His last official position was as Director of what was then Rohtak Medical College & Hospital in Haryana and is now Pt. B. D. Sharma PGIMS Rohtak the only tertiary care and medical teaching facility in the state of Haryana, where he was widely acknowledged to be an outstanding and able medical administrator with an all-consuming concern for the urban poor and agriculturists who frequented this hospital. He induced a change in the work ethic in the medical personnel, teaching and research at Rohtak and carved out efficient emergency and outpatient services. This outstanding work, widely acknowledge by his primary audience the people of Haryana, was a culmination of the 35 years of medical, surgical and administrative experience he gained in Delhi’s leading hospitals; including being the Medical Superintendent of the Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.

Dr. Singh devoted his life and his professional skills in the understanding and management of surgical problems peculiar to India. He made original contributions to surgical science, which have gained national and international recognition and was published abroad in numerous medical journals of international repute. He was awarded the prestigious "Hari Om Ashram Prerit Award" for his original research on kidney stones using appropriate technology.

His work on childhood burns hernia, surgical nutrition and a new operation for prolapse of rectum secured for him wide recognition in general surgery. His contribution on kidney stones and motility studies on large intestines is a landmark in Indian surgery. His work on amoebic liver abscess was published in American Journal of Surgery.

Dr. Singh earned recognition for his work in surgery and was the honor of being appointed as Honorary Surgeon to two Presidents of India, and was honored by the Padma Shri by the President of India in 1991.[1]

Professional Career Positions:
1989-1992 Director of Post-Graduate Medical Education and Research, Haryana and Principal Medical College Rohtak, Haryana. Dean of Medical Faculty & Professor of Surgery, M.D. University, Rohtak.
1986-1989 Medical Superintendent, Consultant and Head of the Department of Surgery, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, New Delhi
1980-1986 Professor and Head of Department of Surgery at University College of Medical Sciences, University of Delhi and Consultant of Surgery, Government of India at Safdarjung Hospital and Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, New Delhi
1971-1980 Senior Surgeon, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, New Delhi
1959-1971 Surgeon, The Willingdon Hospital, New Delhi
1955-1958 Registrar in Surgery, Lady Irwin Hospital, New Delhi

Trained in Paediatric Surgery under the Colombo Plan in London (UK) in the Institute of Child Health, University of London and Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London, W.C.I. and worked as a Registrar.

WHO Fellowship to study Accident & Emergency Services in US and UK for 8 weeks.

Recipient of the prestigious "Hari Om Ashram Prerit Award" announced at the Annual conference of A.S.I. at Agra in 1986 for the best piece of Surgical Research on “Newer Aetriopathologoical aspects of Urinary Calculi and means of preventing their recurrence". This Award is given annually by the ASI to two doctors, one Indian Surgeon and another an NRI for outstanding and original surgical research carried out in India or overseas.

International Conferences where papers were presented

World Pediatric Surgical Congress at Bombay, 1980 (Herniography and Patency of Processus Vaginalis in children)

European Cancer Congress at Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 1983 (Large bowel malignancy in South Asia)

General Scientific meeting of Royal Australian College of Surgeons in Melbourne, 1984

Publications:

In summary, about fifty publications in respected indexed international journals over twenty-five years. Field of Research & Publication was Pediatric Surgery, Oncology, Urology and general surgery. A select number are listed below: